UPDATE: Megaupload data will be preserved for at least two more weeks

After the federal government raided file-sharing site Megaupload two weeks ago, an estimated 50 million people suddenly lost access to data they had stored on the site. Now it looks like those people could very well lose those digital files for good. According to a letter sent by the U.S. Attorney's office to Megaupload's attorney, prosecutors may delete all the data stored by users on the site by as early as Thursday of this week. Megaupload's lawyer is trying to prevent that, but there's another wrinkle: The government froze the company's assets, preventing it from paying the storage services that Megaupload uses. Hopefully, if you have material saved on Megaupload, it wasn't too valuable. Because it might be gone very soon. [via Slate]

UPDATE:The Washington Post reports that Megaupload has arranged with its hosting companies to preserve its stored data for at least two more weeks. Attorneys also hope to gain access to some of the company's assets in order to recover those files.